‘HANDS’ SONG IN LIMBO AT JACKSON’S URGING

“We Are the World,” which celebrates its first birthday today, remains the official end-hunger anthem of USA for Africa, even though foundation President Ken Kragen went to great lengths to give his organization a new theme song for 1986.

Thanks to superstar Michael Jackson, who co-wrote “We Are the World” with Kragen client Lionel Richie, the “Hands Across America” theme song may have been stillborn.

Jackson engineered a successful board-room offensive against unveiling the song and a “Hands Across America” music video on Sunday’s Super Bowl half-time NBC telecast. His fellow board members learned of Jackson’s disdain for the new song during a trustees meeting of the USA for Africa Foundation last Tuesday in Century City, when the 27-year-old reclusive pop star squelched the airing of the “Hands Across America” song and music video. The song “We Are the World” was broadcast in its place.

“The truth and the party line is that Michael Jackson and, in fact, most of the board were in agreement that ‘We Are the World’ should be the official song of USA for Africa,” Kragen said Monday.

Kragen said that the board voted unanimously to make “We Are the World” the official song of USA for Africa at Jackson’s behest. Kragen said that the board also agreed that each separate USA for Africa project, such as Hands Across America, could have its own theme song too, but such theme songs could never supersede “We Are the World.”

“There was a little bit of a flurry last week,” Kragen acknowledged. Of his own enthusiasm for the Hands Across America theme song and video, Kragen said, “Well, I got a little bit ahead of myself.”

Kragen said that a special board meeting from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday effectively ended the board’s disharmony on “Hands Across America.” Jackson did not attend the Saturday meeting.

The Lionel Richie/Michael Jackson composition became an anthem for the African famine movement in 1985. At sales of several million internationally, the recording has become the cornerstone and prime source of funding for the USA for Africa Foundation. Thus far, royalties on the song have raised nearly $40 million of USA for Africa’s $44-million nest egg.

Sources familiar with the closed-door board meeting said that Jackson urged his fellow board members to revert to “We Are the World” as the theme song for the May 25 coast-to-coast handholding event, in part because Jackson believed the song that he co-wrote with Richie was divinely inspired and the true theme song of the international drive to end world hunger.

Kragen had unveiled Marc Blatte and John Chauncey’s “Hands Across America” as the 1986 anthem for America’s homeless and hungry at a press conference Jan. 16. The song, which Kragen boosted as a sure-fire hit, was to be the centerpiece of a kickoff commercial for Hands Across America, USA for Africa’s domestic anti-poverty project. Hands Across America hopes to raise $100 million by soliciting $10 pledges from 6 million to 10 million Americans who would join hands from New York to Los Angeles on May 25.

The commercial, with the new song, was to have aired at half time on the Super Bowl telecast. But board members agreed with Jackson and late last week the song was canceled. It “needed more work” before it could be released, according to one foundation source.

Hands Across America press secretary Miriam Alexander said that “We Are the World” was substituted at the last minute because it has a broader identification as the song of the anti-famine movement. She said she knew nothing of Jackson’s involvement in getting his fellow board members to switch songs.

The “Hands Across America” song was to be the basis for a rousing music video featuring celebrities linking hands with middle America. It was shot 10 days ago during a much-ballyhooed media event on the main street of Taft, Calif.

Some Taft footage aired during the commercial, but the new “Hands Across America” song that celebrities and Taft residents sang together on the streets of Taft did not.

Instead of the Taft music video, Super Bowl TV audiences saw actors Bill Cosby and Lily Tomlin asking Americans to join the coast-to-coast handholding event.

According to one foundation source, the 1-800-USA-9000 telephone number that viewers could call to make their $10 pledge did not air during the Cosby/Tomlin commercial because network policy forbade it. As a result, the phone response following the half-time commercial was not expected to be extremely strong.

A similar ban on airing a pledge phone number was imposed on “The Year of Giving” hour special that aired in November over CBS. That program, featuring “We Are the World” and footage from the Live Aid concert, was hosted by USA for Africa co-founder Harry Belafonte and was designed to encourage viewers to continue giving to end the African famine.

Since then, USA for Africa and the Live Aid Foundation have both come under fire from critics for failing to spend money donated to the cause of Africa fast enough.

The two pop charity foundations, along with Bob Geldof’s Band Aid Trust, have made a policy of spending a portion of their funding on emergency food and medical relief while holding back most of the money for longer-term recovery and development projects, such as road-building, reseeding and well-digging.

USA for Africa, for example, is disbursing $1 million in increments over the next several months to help build a large maintenance garage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to service vehicles that carry food to the drought-stricken interior.

International relief agencies have expressed concern that the foundation may have sidestepped African famine in favor of American poverty as the chief issue of 1986.

The Hands Across America project has been cited as a chief example of the burgeoning interest in America’s homeless and hungry.

USA for Africa officials told The Times that Africa has not been forgotten. At the same board meeting at which Jackson vetoed “Hands Across America,” the foundation trustees voted to spend $2.25 million immediately on emergency grain for the Sudan.

Another criticism--that USA for Africa does not have any representatives in Africa to oversee foundation spending--will also be moot by March. Operation California, which has been under USA for Africa contract since November to oversee the foundation’s African operations, will dispatch a representative to Mali and other French-speaking famine-stricken countries.

Meanwhile, the Hands Across America drive continues.

The last figures Kragen released two weeks ago indicated that about 50,000 Americans had signed up to stand in the Hands Across America line on Memorial Day weekend. Pledges thus far total more than $700,000, including a $13,200 pledge from pop star Prince, who volunteered to buy a mile of the line (about 1,320 people will link hands in an average mile in the 4,135-mile human chain).

“I don’t want to have our people encouraging sign-ups now. I just want to keep this in focus,” Kragen said.

He said his plan calls for a major push on obtaining pledges and sign ups for “the line” beginning the first week in April.